


when the levee breaks

by pasdecoeur



Series: symbrock works [7]
Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-19 12:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16535027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: Eddie remembered his mother's Words, wrapping around her ankle like a wayward vine, a dark string of curling, looping letters, picked straight from 1 Corinthians.‘But the greatest of these is love. Gosh, you're pretty.’So it was all hideously sappy and romantic. Which, hey, good for you Mom, that's great.What did Eddie get?A blob on his left shoulder, like a tiny crazy squid had squirted ink right into his skin. A fuckingblob.





	when the levee breaks

Eddie remembered his mother's Words, wrapping around her ankle like a wayward vine, a dark string of curling, looping letters, picked straight from 1 Corinthians. _‘But the greatest of these is love. Gosh, you're pretty.’_

So it was all hideously sappy and romantic. Which, hey, good for you Mom, that's great.

What did Eddie get?

A blob on his left shoulder, like a tiny crazy squid had squirted ink right into his skin. A fucking _blob._

_\---_

  
  
  


Eddie’s parents met like this:

Jamie Eisner was heading home from Catechism on a bright Sunday morning, giggling with her friends, swooning all over today’s lessons, but mostly over Father Lobell, who looked awfully like a young Cary Grant, with his slow smile, and his dark, shiny hair, and his bright, pretty eyes.

She hadn't quite been watching the road when she started to cross, reciting line 13 with a dreamy smile - _‘And these three remain: faith, hope, love’ -_ and turned in alarm when she heard he blare of a horn. Young Carl Brock had practically vaulted across the street, the way the story went, dragged her off to the other side, and finished, _‘But the greatest of these is love. Gosh you're pretty.’_

Youknow how it goes.

It was love at first sight, yadda yadda.

Destiny, or something.

\---

  


_‘You need to calm down,’_ screams the voice in his head, and Eddie’s shoulder _burns,_ and something horrifying and- and _toothy_ in the mirror blurs into his vision and Eddie screams like a five-year old at Halloween movie night, throws himself backwards and brains himself on the tub.

And that's how Carnage’s parents meet, so of course the poor bastard doesn't come out all the way okay.

Look. Destiny is overrated.

\---

  


Eddie eats day old chicken from the trash, and bites into a live motherfucking lobster, and nearly sobs into his ex-fiancée’s new boyfriend’s impressively good shoulders, - ooooh, way to go, Annie - and the whole damn time, the mark on his shoulder burns and _burns._

\----

  
  


_“What changed your mind?”_

_‘You did, Eddie.’_

The pain in his shoulder clenches, and releases, suffusing bright, effervescent heat all through his body. Eddie’s not sure if he’s imagining it, not sure if anything’s even _real_ anymore, but San Francisco’s never looked brighter to him before tonight.

And Eddie thinks, _“Oh.’_

_\----_

  
  
  


Eddie falls through open air, while the world catches on fire, the explosive, concussive blasts of the explosion catching them full in the chest, but he isn't-

He isn't scared.

Venom’s grip around his hands, his wrists, is sure, iron-clad, and Eddie isn't scared, not when the symbiote blooms into a makeshift parachute and Eddie thinks nonsensically of the Incredibles.

_I’ve got you. I’ve got you._

“Goodbye Eddie,” whispers the voice in his head, the voice that's _real_ , that voice that curls around his bones, and sinks into his marrow, that is _his,_ it's _his,_ it **_belongs_** _to him-_

 _‘Goodbye, Eddie,’_ the symbiote whispers, and Eddie falls, and his shoulder doesn't hurt anymore, but his chest feels like it's about to scream apart.

\---

  
  


Eddie’s mom died like this:

It was a Wednesday evening, and they were on their way back from Mass. The rain was coming down sideways like it did in the fall, and the road was dark and slick, gleaming in the headlights. The radio was a wash of static from the lightning in the storm, so Eddie reached into the glove box, fished out a Zep tape and popped it in.

He was six then, and Mom was at the wheel - Dad hadn't been able to make it. Another late day at work.

Jimmy Page’s soft, easy thrum filled the inside of their Buick, and Plant was about seven kinds of heartbroken on _Going to California._ Jenny Brock joined in, a crooning, high falsetto that made Eddie grin, made his insides squish up happily. Mom had perfect pitch, even if Eddie'd been saddled with Dad’s tone deaf rasp.

He joined in anyway, because Mom liked it when he did, got a crooked little grin on her face-- _’It seems the wrath of God is a punch in the- MOM! WATCH OUT!!’_

She spun the wheel, and the car hydroplaned. Bright, stark light filled Eddie’s eyes, the loud, ground-shaking moan of the eighteen-wheeler’s horn filled his ears. His little shoulder thunked hard against the side of the car door, and he was weightless, _flying_ , spinning--

_pain._

_pain._

_PAIN._

He blinked.

How long had it been?

He blinked.

Looked out the shattered windshield.

The world was upside down.

He blinked.

Looked to the side.

Mom stared at him, glassy-eyed, blood dripping out of her open mouth. The stereo was still going, somehow, though the engine was busted and the car was dead.

 _‘With a word, she can get what she came for,_  
_And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.’_

Eddie closed his eyes, and let the darkness take him.

\---

  
  


_‘Eddie.’_

“Is he alive?”

“I have a pulse!”

There were sirens screaming in the air.

_‘Eddie, wake up.’_

“How the hell- He was underwater! For- for- jesus, look at his hands.”

Bright, sterile light. God, his throat _burns._

_‘Eddie. Please.’_

“Pupil dilation’s normal. Turn him over. The water’s out. Hey, buddy, can you hear me?”

Eddie opened his eyes, but that hurt. Everything hurt.

_‘We will fix it. We will.’_

“Hey, buddy,” a weathered old paramedic was saying, grinning, eyes crinkled up, exhausted but pleased. “Welcome back. Your throat might be a little sore, on account of the saltwater you inhaled, but we’ll get that fixed up, okay?”

Eddie tries to nod, and then his stretcher’s being heaved up, loaded into a van. Through slitted, narrow eyes, he watches his own hands, folded up over his chest, dark black tendrils snaking around his fingers, his wrists, liquid and sinuous, almost warm. They pool in his palms, globular and writhing. Eddie squeezes, and they squeeze back.

“You're okay.”

_‘You- That- Yes. Yes.’_

The paramedic sends a funny glance at him. Eddie doesn't care.

“That's good. I was scared. Worried.”

_'You were?'_

Eddie hates the surprise in that voice. _His_ voice.

"Desperately."

_‘Eddie. You are- We are not permitted to die. Do you- Do you understand? We cannot- You are-’_

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers back, and his hands are clenched into painful fists. “You don't _ever_ do that again,” he begs. “You don't _**ever**_ sacrifice yourself like that. Not for me, you have to promise. Never for _me_ -”

_‘We cannot make that promise!’_

“Yes. You can. It's together, or _**nothing** , _do you understand?”

_‘Eddie. We cannot- On your planet, we cannot survive alone. But you can. You can survive without us.’_

"Yeah? Maybe I don't _**want**_ to."

_'Eddie.'_

“Together, or _nothing._ ”

The place in his chest that had been gouged out fills up again, throbs, thick, heady, a strange buzzing in his eyes. _“Mine,”_ Eddie thinks, as loud as he can, and there’s a thrum in his shoulder, like butterfly wings, like a neon buzz, like the thump of a bassline heard through a wall.

 _‘...ours,’_ comes the reply, and Eddie can feel the symbiote, curling over his skin, wrapping around his bones, sliding over his navel and dipping along his spine, until he’s drowning, until he doesn't know where he ends and the symbiote begins.

“Ours.”

He closes his eyes.

He lets the darkness take him.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from Led Zeppelin's 'When the Levee Breaks.' All songs from Led Zeppelin IV (1971).
> 
> [I know Eddie has an older sister in the comics, and that Jamie Brock dies in childbirth, but like. Uh. Artistic license?]  
> [rebloggable on tumblr here!](https://pasdecoeur.tumblr.com/post/179808554624/when-the-levee-breaks)  
> Thanks for reading! Hit kudos if you liked it <3


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